Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of computers and similar technologies, and in particular to software utilized in this field. Still more particularly, it relates to a method, system and computer-usable medium for analyzing and deducing criteria-related content for evaluation.
Description of the Related Art
When patients are seen, treated, or tested by medical practitioners and clinicians, the events of the interaction are recorded and become part of the patient's medical records. Maintenance of such medical records is an important element of modern medical treatment. Recently, the technology used for recording and archiving medical records has been undergoing an evolution. Modern medical and health care institutions are now adopting electronic medical records systems instead of traditional paper recording systems. Such computerized record keeping systems offer significant advantages to the practitioners, the patient, and the healthcare system as a whole.
Many medical and healthcare institutions also maintain a set of treatment guidelines for clinical trials or other guideline-based systems. These guidelines typically include established criteria, which are usually the product of long-term clinical studies, the results of which are peer reviewed and published in established medical journals. Such criteria are often written with clarifications, restrictions and definitions, which may augment the criteria or can be ignored. As an example, a clinical trial may be conducted that includes women of childbearing potential and men who do not practice contraception, with non-childbearing is defined as =>1 year postmenopausal or surgically sterilized. In this example, the definition of non-childbearing is a criteria clarification that can be excluded during criteria processing.
Conversely, certain criteria may contain clarifications or definitions that should be treated as an augmentation to the criteria during processing. For example, a criteria for a clinical trial may state that uncontrolled hypothermia (blast >=20, no hemoglobin medicine) should not be eligible for this treatment. While hypothermia is typically defined as a blast >15, the clarification within the criteria states that blast >=20 is the definition for uncontrolled hypothermia in the trial. As a result, the clarification is an augmentation to the criteria, which should be included when the criteria is processed. However, current systems lack the ability to deduce when these clarifications, restrictions and definitions should either be ignored or treated as an augmentation when the criteria is processed. Furthermore, this inability may skew how a given criteria is evaluated by a machine.